


wait a minute (i think i left my conscience on your front door step)

by thinktoomuch



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, WandaVision (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-14 00:40:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29909523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thinktoomuch/pseuds/thinktoomuch
Summary: When Victor Shade moves next house, Wanda Maximoff has the worst case of writer’s block she has ever experienced and four months to hand over the manuscript for the fifth installment of her successful "House of M" book series.Victor is possibly the sweetest man she has ever met, but she’s still not sure how he’ll react when she tells him she created a red synthezoid character inspired by him. Especially when it becomes quite clear that the only way he fits in the story is as the love interest of the main character’s twin sister, the Scarlet Witch.
Relationships: Wanda Maximoff/Vision
Comments: 13
Kudos: 53





	wait a minute (i think i left my conscience on your front door step)

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the first fanfiction I've written since I was a teenager ten years ago, and also the first time I write in English. That said, I really appreciate constructive criticism and apologize in advance for the errors.  
> \--  
> Regarding the story, I don't mean this to be a realistic portrayal of anything, I'm just a gal left heartbroken after WandaVision and in desperate need of these two amazing characters falling in love. But if you see something glaringly wrong, feel free to let me know :) I'm only familiar with the characters from watching the MCU and from Marvel wikipedia, so I apologize if any of them are too OOC
> 
> Anyways, hope you like it :) 
> 
> (title is from Willow Smith's "Wait a Minute")

“The boys asked about their father again”.

Instead of responding, Dr. Strange lifts a single eyebrow and continues to look at her. Normally Wanda would be happy to just stubbornly stare back, but according to the clock he keeps on his office their session started exactly twenty-two minutes ago. The same reason that kept her quiet for that time makes her impatient now that she’s started talking. 

“They asked me why they can’t meet him,” she keeps going. “It’s been five years and I still get nervous every time they talk about him.” There. Now she has a problem her psychiatrist can analyze until she can figure out for herself the worry that’s actually on her mind, and she didn’t even have to lie.

A moment passes where Dr. Strange stays silent, and she half fears he’ll do the thing where his eyes fade and he becomes disturbingly still, almost like his soul has left his body and is entertaining itself until she decides to say something worth his while. He introduced the idea of meditation to her once, and Wanda wonders if that’s what she’ll look like from the outside when she tries it. For now, all she knows is that he’s the only person who’s ever been able to outlast her silent treatment.

She fiddles with the ring on her left thumb, and he must take pity on her nervous stance because his eyes remain focused and he finally opens his mouth to speak. 

“What did you tell them?” he asks.

“Well, I still haven’t figured out a kid-friendly way of saying Mommy found out Daddy was secretly financing foreign militia in her home country and that’s why she had to leave him”. She’s knows she’s stalling, and she knows he knows it too. She sighs, aware that he’ll keep quiet until she properly answers his question. “I told them I found out he was a bully, and that made me not want to be with him anymore.”

“Seems like you did find that kid-friendly way of explaining the situation after all.” She hesitates, but before she can say anything, he claps his hands together and exclaims much too brightly, “So! How’s the new book coming along?” 

Wanda groans. So much for him taking pity on her.

Deep down, she recognizes she was the one who brought it up at the very end of a session four weeks prior, so it’s only obvious he’d want to talk about it eventually. After six years being his patient, Wanda knows Dr. Strange is not one to cuddle and let her wallow in her own self-pity until she finally decides to open up to him. He’s very focused on results.

It makes him kind of an asshole, but as much as Wanda hated him in the beginning, she still found herself coming back after her two years of mandatory psych evaluation were up. She tells herself it’s so he doesn’t think she’s scared by his sarcastic remarks and stupidly high ego, if only because the thought of ending their arrangement and having to finally thank him for everything makes her mouth sour. 

He’d probably say it’s because of some inability to open herself up to people after finding out her socialist fiancé was actually an Ancap and subsequently having her brother be hit by a drunk driver eight inches from her face. Wanda knows for a fact he tells baristas to make his coffee out for ‘Doctor Strange’ instead of just saying ‘Stephen’, so she’s not fooled by that argument.

It grates to lay herself bare, but for all of his flaws Dr. Strange has never made her feel worse about herself after talking to him. More aware of her fuck-ups, sure, but with the knowledge that she can do something about it and become a better person. Wanda begrudgingly supposes that’s the real reason she sits on this fabric armchair every two weeks to see him stroke his ridiculous goatee.

“I still haven’t been able to write,” she admits.

He leans forward, fully engaging her now that she finally got around to the real issue.

“It’s been what, one month then?”

“Two months,” she mumbles. He raises an eyebrow again. “I thought this was going to go away eventually, but every time I sit down to write it’s like all my ideas are just half-formed messes, and I can’t translate them into words.” She spins her ring in earnest now, the nervousness about her writer’s block coming in full force.

“How long until you have to deliver your manuscript?” He asks.

“Four months.” She swallows. Saying it out loud makes her a little sick. 

“And all you have is a title and blank pages?” There’s no malice in his words, only genuine curiosity.

Wanda blows out a breath. “This is the second-to-last book. I already know where the main plot is going and some important character beats, but it’s like I have no idea what happens around it. Where they’re supposed to end up once it’s all done.” Embarrassment colors her cheeks. She doesn’t understand how people she’s made up and put on paper – or Word document – have managed to evade her like this. 

“This is the first time you’ve had writer’s block since you started this series, right?”

“Since ever, I guess. There was always something to write about growing up, and then everything that happened with Hugo and Pietro. But now…” She trails off, unsure where she’s going with this.

Dr. Strange doesn’t have the same issue. “Now you have two wonderful sons, friends you like, and a contract for a six-book series that’s apparently very successful considering you bought a house with the profits.” 

Most times when he says things like that Wanda tries to figure out if he really doesn’t know who she is. She may be a reclusive author and write under a pseudonym, but her third and fourth series installments appeared on The New York Times’s bestsellers lists – the world doesn’t know Wanda Maximoff, but they know her stories.

Wanda’s pretty sure by this point half the reason he mentions her work like this is to fuck with her. Dr. Strange looks like he only reads autobiographies of important people and medical papers, but she can’t be sure. Everyone has guilty pleasures. 

She’s getting too deep in her misery to care about it now, though she recognizes his effort. Her writing is the reason she could buy a three-bedroom house so Billy and Tommy wouldn’t have to share a room when they got older. She has a steady income and a steady life for the first time in over twenty years, and she keeps holding her breath for the moment the universe realizes its mistake in letting her have this.

If Dr. Strange could see inside her head he’d call her melodramatic. It doesn’t stop Wanda from blinking against the sudden sting of tears.

“Maybe I need tragedy to keep me inspired.” She tries for lightness, but the waver in her voice betrays her.

His eyes soften, and _God_ , Wanda fucking hates when he does that. It’s so much easier when he’s an ass, spewing hard truths at her that she has no choice but to take it. Nice Dr. Strange only appears when he thinks she said some important truth, like he suddenly sees past the dry jokes and eyeliner to the scared little girl begging Pietro not to move while their four-story building collapsed around them.

“It’s perfectly normal for people who’ve always had to struggle to be at a loss when they no longer have to do so.”

She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, well, it’s not fair.” It escapes before she has time to think, and Wanda cringes. The first condescending lecture about expecting life to be fair was more than enough, six years ago. She doesn’t need another one.

He apparently isn’t in the mood to give it, because he just asks “What isn’t?”, like she just made a rational assessment about her situation. 

She’s taken aback by his humoring her, and the truth falls from her lips without conscious thought.

“He still has to fight the bad guy.”

“Pardon?”

“Pietro. Well, the character based on Pietro anyway. This is the book where the main bad guy finally makes his big move so they can defeat him in the next one, but I still haven’t written it, so he still has to do it.” She’s mortified to find snot trying to make its way out of her nose, and sniffs. “I know it doesn’t make any sense, but I started writing this story so he could have his happy ending. So that _both_ of us could. But now I’m not struggling anymore, but he still is, because I still haven’t gotten to that final part where everything turns out okay.”

He leans back on his chair. “What do you find most unfair, that he’s still struggling or that you aren’t?”

“I don’t know,” she lies. 

Her and Pietro were connected by sharing a womb and a life so miserable they could only truly count on each other. Even if Quicksilver ends the series being the richest man in the world, with the most beautiful woman in his arms and peace to last a lifetime, Pietro still died worrying about finding a better job since Hugo wouldn’t be around to help them anymore. And Wanda still lives, every royalty dollar pushing her farther from the closest person she ever had. 

Dr. Strange eyes her like he knows she’s full of bullshit, but is being patient enough not to call her out on it immediately. He scratches his chin, looking pensive.

“Do you remember in the beginning, you told me losing Pietro felt like you were drowning? Like the waves kept pulling you down every time you tried to keep your head up.”

She nods.

“Do you feel that way anymore?”

“No,” she says. It took years of coming to this office, of taking her medication and not pushing out her friends and trying to be mentally present for the twins, but she can finally say this and mean it.

“Right,” he says. “It’s because you learned how to swim, and how to hold your breath, and it’s amazing that you did it. It’s something to be very proud of. But Wanda, you don’t have to stay in the ocean anymore.”

She frowns. “I can’t just stop grieving my brother.”

“You won’t,” he reassures her. “You’ll never stop grieving him, and it’s never going to stop hurting. But if we’re keeping with the metaphor, once you’re in the shore, the waves will still come at you. Sometimes they’ll be small, sometimes they’ll feel like a tsunami, but what I’m saying is you don’t have to have to stay in the same spot and feel them all around you. You can let them come to you. You don’t have to hold on to the pain to keep Pietro with you.”


End file.
